Talk for Churches Together in South Yorkshire on working with 'vulnerable people' - exploring the meaning of vulnerability, what good support looks like and what the government is doing to the welfare state.
14. There are eight degrees of charity, one higher than the
other. The highest degree, exceeded by none, is that of
the person who assists a poor Jew by providing him
with a gift or loan or by accepting him into a business
partnership or by helping him find employment - in a
word, by putting him where he can dispense with
other people's aid. With reference to such aid, it is said,
“You shall strengthen him, be he a stranger or a settler,
he shall live with you” (Lev. 25:35), which means
strengthen him in such manner that his falling into
want is prevented.
Maimonides
25. The financial crisis was not
caused by welfare spending.
It was caused by over-lending to
individuals to support excessive
house price growth.
It is a bubble politicians cannot
afford to burst.
26. Then did all the grants and the subsidies, the benefits and the
bargain offers pass over these poverty-stricken peasants when
Ingolfur Angerson's ideals came to fruition? What is one to say? It
so happens that it signifies little though a penniless crofter be
offered a grant from the Treasury towards the cost of tractors and
modern ploughs...
The fact is that it is utterly pointless to make anyone a generous
offer unless he is a rich man; rich men are the only people who can
accept a generous offer. To be poor is simply the peculiar human
condition of not being able to take advantage of a generous offer.
The essence of being a poor peasant is the inability to avail oneself
of the gifts which politicians offer or promise and to be left at the
mercy of ideals which only make the rich richer and the poor
poorer.
Halldor Laxness
27. Even if cuts are
necessary - there is
no need to target
cuts like this...
32. Child Benefit freeze
Abolition of Sure Start Maternity for second
and subsequent children
Change to CPI indexation of benefits Reductions in support for carers
Replacing DLA with PIP
Child Benefit clawback from higher rate
taxpayers
Time-limiting of contributory ESA Transfer of Social Fund to local government
Council Tax Benefit – 10% reduction and
localisation
Extension of JSA lone parents with a
youngest child aged 5-6
Housing Benefit cuts Household Benefit cap
Abolition of the Independent Living Fund Continued use of ATOS or others
Universal Credit Reductions in ‘Access to Work’ funding
Closure of Remploy services Abolition of the Child Trust Fund
Tax credit changes Abolition of the Health in Pregnancy Grant
Abolition of the Child Trust Fund Abolition of the ESA youth rules
41. The current situation is complex
because many of us accept the
need for welfare reform...
...but reject the idea that these
changes are real reforms.